1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal light valve and to a device, such as a projection display device, that incorporates the liquid crystal light valve.
2. Description of Related Art
A typical projection display device (hereinafter referred to as “projector”) includes an illumination optical system that includes a polarization generation optical system that converts unpolarized light that has exited from a light source into a predetermined linearly polarized light beam and causes the converted light beam to exit therefrom; a color light separation optical system that separates the linearly polarized light beam that has exited from the illumination optical system into light beams of three colors, i.e., a red light beam, a green light beam, and a blue light beam; three light valves that modulate the corresponding color light beams in accordance with image information (hereinafter referred to as “image signals”); a color light synthesizing optical system that includes a cross dichroic prism that synthesizes each of the modulated color light beams; and a projection optical system that projects the synthesized light onto a screen.
In this device, the projection display device realizes increased numerical apertures of the liquid crystal light valves, and uses an integrator lens, having small lenses disposed in a matrix arrangement, in the polarization generation optical system of the illumination optical system in order to display a high-brightness, high-quality and high-contrast image.